Page 24 - CNBC Mag Free Issue Edition 6
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Meet the Author
Tessa Broad, author of Dear You, talks about the ups and downs
of writing such a personal book about her CNBC journey
Please share a little of your CNBC Did you have any writing experience
story with us. before you started?
I feel the need for a “spoiler alert” if I say Prior to writing Dear You I had written
too much here, because of course my fiction. I was inspired to write by the
CNBC story is all in my book. Suffice to intimate confessional style of Nick
say I tried for children for five years while Hornby’s novel High Fidelity. I have
having various infertility treatments completed two novels which have been
including IUI, IVF, and an ovarian safely filed in a deep drawer and have two
diathermy with, needless to say, no more as works in progress, one of which I
miracle baby outcome. have recently returned to post the
publication of Dear You.
What made you decide to write a
book? Did you seek any help such as a
writing mentor?
I feel the main reason for my writing Dear
You was because I have at times felt No. I didn’t use a writing mentor, but I
misunderstood—that people who didn’t have read many books and magazines on
know me well didn’t “get” me. I simply writing.
wanted to share how it feels—to try to
find the language to express how it is to How long did it take you from having
be a childless woman in a world where that first flash of inspiration to
women seem to be defined by their holding a copy of your book in your
fertility. hands for the first time?
What is your book about and what This is hard to answer in that I switched
makes it stand out from other books to and from writing the memoir and
about infertility and/or being CNBC? writing fiction. Initially I wrote of my
infertility experience as a straight memoir
Dear You is different from other infertility and that was at least ten years ago. I
memoirs in that whilst it covers my returned to it about around three years
experiences on “the Treatment Trail” as I ago and re-wrote it as a letter.
call it, much of the book is a
“conversation” (albeit one-sided) with my What were the highs and lows whilst
imagined children. I write of my values, you were writing?
my loves and pet hates, and the
upbringing I had envisaged for my I think all writers will say this: the lows
children. Drawing from my life are thinking, as I read through the drafts,
experiences and world view, I use it as an “this is a load of rubbish,” “I can’t write,”
opportunity to pass on stories, anecdotes, blah, blah, blah. The highs are the other
insights, and the odd nugget of advice to days when you read it through it and
the children I never had. think, “Yeah, that’s pretty profound, that
works.” All building to the totally fabulous
24 The Childless Not By Choice Magazine: Launch Issue
